Pages

Friday, May 31, 2013

FatCat IPA Shootout 2013!

It has been a while since I've gotten the gang together and had a good ol' fashion shootout. The inspiration for our shootout was the testing of Midwest Supply's Furious IPA kit. We stacked the deck with the top performers from my past IPA shootouts and were interested to see where they ranked. As always a FatCat shootout is a blind tasting which means we have no clue what beers we are tasting at which time. All of the preconceptions are thrown out the window and our palates are the only indicators of greatness. We are by no means beer judges but we do fancy ourselves some pretty experienced craft brew enjoyers. We rated each beer 1 to 5 with 1 being the worst and 5 being the best. Can the Furious IPA kit (an extract kit no less) stand up to some of the best IPAs in the business?

The Odell IPA stood out once again in our shootout by taking top honors. It is a wonderful blend of bright citrus flavors and a balancing malt backbone to even things out. Second place was the hometown hero Boulevard Single Wide IPA. It was a thinner feeling brew but had the really good bitterness to let you know that you are enjoying an IPA. In a tie for third place there was the homebrewed kit beer, Furious IPA, and a new comer in Santa Fe Happy Camper IPA. Falling from grace were the Founder's Centennial IPA and the New Belgium Ranger IPA. Both of these beers had finished well in the other IPA shootouts but they didn't fare so well in this one.

Stay tuned for a detailed review on the top 4 brews and a "how to" post showing how easy it is to make the Furious Kit brew at home.